As it turns out, developing robot hands for amputees and others with hand/arm problems is a somewhat different set of design problems from developing them for industrial uses. We've covered a few of those in DN.

Your comment, Ann, makes me think about how much we can learn about human movement in the development of robots...even as engineers mimic human movement to develop robots. I would have never looked at the pinky quite that way, but it's true, isn't it?

It's pretty incredible, isn't it, Chuck? We don't often think of robots creating art, mostly just performing mechanical tasks. So it's interesting to see a robot taking a different tack to do something purely for the sake of beauty. And not so scary, though, if you think that ultimately a human did create all of that! Funny, though, how we think of robots as their own, autonomous beings, and forget sometimes humans are behind them (in terms of programming, development etc.).

GTOlover: When I think of the importance of a pinky on a robot, I always think of the scene from the movie Jurassic Park, where the robotic hands gently lift and re-position the dinosaur eggs. Pinkies definitely have an important role in minimizing handheld forces.

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